


Monsoon Seasons

by pearthery



Category: Gintama
Genre: :this had chapters at first but i made it a oneshot, Imagery, M/M, Post Joui War, Pre-Joui War, Shoka Sonjuku, and now things are a little messed up, but they're still soft, i should probably explain why the statistics are a little funny, like takagin!, several zura cameos in which he is classic zura ahahahaha, shinsuke wakes up in a lot of different situations and he has a fantastic time!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24832765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearthery/pseuds/pearthery
Summary: Gintoki folds open to scratch the back of his ankle."Shoyo kept making us cross rivers. I don't even think there are that many rivers in Japan. Do you think he was making us cross the same ones over and over?"Shinsuke snorts. "That was probably the only way he could get you to wash your stinky feet."Four times Takasugi Shinsuke wakes up, and one time he falls asleep.
Relationships: Sakata Gintoki & Takasugi Shinsuke & Katsura Kotarou, Sakata Gintoki & Takasugi Shinsuke & Sakamoto Tatsuma, Sakata Gintoki/Takasugi Shinsuke
Comments: 10
Kudos: 66





	Monsoon Seasons

**Author's Note:**

> i felt many emotions writing this! i hope you feel many emotions too!

Shinsuke wakes up slowly, sunshine warm on his face.

It's late afternoon and the sun is coming at an angle through the leaves, so he has to squint at the light that cuts through his bleary eyes. Someone is snickering above him and their breath is puffing against his forehead. He's sure it's not Zura, because Zura never snickers, he only belly-laughs maniacally with his mouth ridiculously wide and voice ridiculously deep, and the person above him is at least trying to tamp it down. 

For all Zura's determination to stick to the rules, he always seems excited for any chance he gets to become a mastermind villain, but this plan's so stupid Shinsuke knows that Zura would be offended to be part of it. Also, Zura is talking cheerfully behind Shinsuke's shoulder with the offender in question, so he couldn't possibly be holding a brush to Shinsuke's cheek, hunger-thin wrist smeared with ink, teeth gleaming in an eager grin. Most importantly, Zura has black hair. Not silver.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Shinsuke yelps as he rolls away. "Zura! He's trying to kill me! Why are you sitting there!"

Zura, like the goody-two-shoes he is, is dutifully practising his calligraphy. He has a single piece of parchment in front of him, because Sensei trusts that Zura makes no mistakes, and a set of paintbrushes, one of which has been spirited away by Sensei's weird feral child, whose name is Gintoki, but Shinsuke thinks jerk, or bastard, actually, is a much better fit.

Sensei's generosity truly knows no bounds, because he can't imagine why anyone would give such an infuriating person such a nice name. Gintoki can't even write the characters without smearing half the page in ink and falling asleep and fine, maybe that's an exaggeration, and maybe Gintoki does know how to hold a brush properly, but what does it matter if he can't control his strokes. Why Sensei lets him sleep in the corner like a lazy pig during lessons is completely beyond him. 

This, though important, is all in the background of his mind, because in the foreground of Shinsuke's vision is a bundle of inky bristles hovering over his face, and droplets of black liquid falling to trickle down his cheek. Some of the ink splatters messily as Gintoki scrambles after him, and Shinsuke's sure that at least one droplet has splashed into his eye because that's the only possible reason for his sudden—you could call it furious, but sudden works really well too—blackout, which Zura, and perhaps even Sensei, might call apoplectic in nature, but it's definitely because of Gintoki's reckless brush-waving. 

He screams. He's not angry though. Of course not. He's not angry because he's embarrassed or anything, or incensed at Gintoki's underhanded victory against him, or just trying to disguise his ink-smeared pride, of course not, Shinsuke is merely justifiably concerned about the effects of calligraphy ink on his skin, he doesn't want to die young from blood poisoning or something, and he is also defending Zura's studiousness against villains of laziness like Gintoki.

It might be too late. On Shinsuke's other side, Zura is already succumbing to Gintoki's contagious apathy, steadfastly betraying his best friend in his hour of need in order to memorise whatever random characters they were learning in class today, and also to doodle little white ducks in between.

"A samurai must learn to fight his own battles, Shinsuke," professes Zura solemnly as he draws his largest duck yet. He doodles around it little stick people with little stick swords. "Your battle against tattoo addiction has been crippling, but I have the utmost faith that you will overcome it." He is completely unfazed at Shinsuke's growl, his face turned carefully towards his parchment.

"He's right, Takasugi-kun," says Gintoki in the same fake-deep wise voice. "Your tattoo addiction is becoming the downfall of this family. I can't stand to see you this way anymore, so I've dedicated this important day in my life to help you overcome it." He leans closer with the brush, cheeks dimpling. A fool would call it cute and warm. Shinsuke is no fool, and he sees the deviousness beneath. "Using this special seal, I will help you rediscover your true self."

"Help me?" snaps Shinsuke, who can feel the tight, dry pressure of caked ink on his face. It's the complete opposite of comfortable, the absolute furthest thing from helpful. "Who's helping? You're just enabling it!" He pauses for a moment. "And who has a tattoo addiction? You're the one obsessed with painting my face! Gah—stop aiming for my nose!"

Good, well-bred children aren't supposed to scream this loud, or scream at all actually, but Shinsuke thinks even his old, stuffy teachers would have excused him for it because there's no way anyone exists who wouldn't get riled up at Gintoki's horrible, annoying face. Or maybe not; his old teachers were some really wrinkly, pretentious bats who took a totally unnecessary joy in punishing little kids. 

Good thing, then, that Shinsuke has fully adopted the role of troublemaker since he walked out on that noble school, because there's no way that grabbing Zura's other paintbrush and wrestling Gintoki to the ground won't get him into trouble. There are no good, well-bred children here. Zura could try to disguise himself as one, but everyone knows that good and goody-two-shoes are two different categories, so he doesn't count.

They get into trouble. This does not include Zura, but it most definitely includes Shinsuke and Gintoki, even though when they'd started rolling around in the dust, yelling, Zura was the one who started shouting strange metaphors and absurdly melodramatic scenarios, and it was Zura's fault Sensei came out to investigate anyway, so really, who's to blame in this situation, because it's not Shinsuke, though it's definitely Gintoki, for rubbing ink on his face in the first place, and—

Shinsuke has managed to smear Gintoki's forehead with a squiggly circle; thin, gold-tipped grass is plastered onto their sticky faces, and they're stained black from the ink and bruised blue from where they hit each other with the brushes. Shinsuke's elbow is scraped red and Gintoki has scratches down the side of his cheek to match the black line on Shinsuke's.

Sensei smiles at them, and then he hits them even harder than they'd hit each other, and their heads are still throbbing later as they sit in the half-filled tub.

Gintoki flicks cold water at him. 

"You started it," Shinsuke tells him, and he vows to himself never to fall asleep near Gintoki again.

°°°

The dawn is limp and lifeless the day after the temple school burns down. Shinsuke is the only person awake when the morning comes, and he is the only one to spy the weak sunlight inching up the charred and broken walls.

Leaning against the splintered scaffolding, he watches it drift aimlessly in the mist. It makes its way up his outstretched leg, painfully slow, and reaches the tip of his sandal on the leg he has drawn up against his chest, touching the grey ash with trembling, translucent fingers.

Shinsuke sits against the outside wall, near the gaping doorway, and tracks the shadow-line's retreat as it fades beneath the sunlight. When it hits his chest and burns like dry ice, Shinsuke turns his head towards the futons laid out on the floor and the haggard bundle of children curled together amongst them.

"Zura," he says. The steam of his breath like plumes of smoke. In the centre of the room, Zura stirs and grunts.

"It's morning," Shinsuke says again. Zura mumbles something out and rolls over, turning his face towards the seared shoji so that his face, and the puffed red skin of his eyelids, is illuminated in the dawn. For a second, Shinsuke wonders whether he should stand up and shake the other boy awake.

A tired voice interrupts him. 

"Let 'em sleep," drawls Gintoki, his eyes squeezed shut. He is older now, as lazy as he's always been, his arm thrown over his face to block the light. It's disgustingly in-character for Gintoki; aside from moving his arm, he's otherwise in the same position he'd fallen asleep in earlier after kicking Shinsuke awake for the early morning shift. Shinsuke rolls his eyes and scoffs.

"What, like you let me sleep earlier?"

"You went to sleep?" Gintoki mumbles into the crook of his elbow. "I don't remember you going to bed, Takasugi-kun, I thought you were keeping watch, but did you actually abandon your duty? I should've known a rich boy like you couldn't be relied on—"

He keeps yammering on as he stretches, which turns out to be his downfall, actually, as he most certainly deserves, because the motion makes him choke on his own saliva. Shinsuke watches as Gintoki yanks himself upright and coughs violently into the cloth of his worn yukata. He sighs.

"You didn't let me sleep, so why should I let them sleep? And after all, it's morning, we should be preparing to leave soon."

"Oh," comes the rasped reply. "That's obviously different."

Shinsuke frowns. Different? "In what way?" 

"Well, you like being awake all night long. But these guys…" Gintoki pauses with his hands splayed loosely on his crossed knees. He trails off and, after a moment's hesitation, barrels on with a new sentence. "We'll be walking a lot, right? And since these guys are all spoiled village brats—though don't worry, Takasugi-kun, you're still the most spoiled of them all—they'll be tired and cranky, so even just a little rest will make them complain a bit less."

"Sounds like you're speaking for yourself," Shinsuke retorts half-heartedly. He wants to argue, but there is no good argument he can come up with against the truth. Gintoki has a point. They have a long journey ahead of them, to the next village. Zura had said something last night, before he sank against the wall and the tears sloughed down his cheek. 

'They won't take us,' he said of the village that fringed the temple school. 'They'll be frightened of what happened. So we have to go somewhere else. It'll be safer, I think.'

Shinsuke doesn't know how they will make the journey. They'll have to go on foot, of course, but how long can these children walk? There will be crying, first. Hollow eyes, grieved screaming, gaunt, vacant expressions—the residual terror of last night sunken into their bones. And then their feet will begin to blister, and their legs will ache, and they will go blind under the bright sun. 

He isn't sure himself whether he'd be able to to push through. Shinsuke hasn't trained for this. Gintoki has a point. None of them are well suited for such prolonged travel, and none of them are prepared. No one was prepared. No one could have been prepared for this. Except, perhaps—

"You sound confident. Have you done this before or something?"

Gintoki twists to look at him, bringing his knees up to his chest, and his eyes are carefully blank. "Or something," he says. 

"That's not an answer," Shinsuke grumbles. Gintoki does not answer. Instead he cracks his neck, to the left, then to the right, small, sharp sounds emanating from his joints. Apparently it's bad to crack your knuckles, Shinsuke recalls as he watches the other boy press his folded fingers stubbornly against the palm of his other hand, chasing the pop that comes with pushing your joints past their limits. It weakens your grip. Makes your hands swell. Gintoki pushes harder, and he cracks three of his fingers in one go, sighing at the feeling.

He still does not answer, though he never does. It feels almost cold. They are always left questioning, and Shinsuke's curiosity swells, and he wonders, and his wondering might be transforming, slowly, into panicking, though it is a dull panic, more of a vague ache than a wasp's sting or a stake through his chest or smoke in his lungs or lit charcoal under his feet, more a dull panic than a jingling, pointed staff ringing in his ears—

"It was with Shoyo," murmurs Gintoki, near-silent, giving voice to the one thing they have so carefully tried not to mention. Shoyo. They saw Shoyo yesterday evening. He saw them off to bed, his fingers gentle on the shoji. They saw Shoyo yesterday night. He was being taken away, and his hands were bound behind his back. They saw Gintoki yesterday night. He was on the ground. There was ash on his face. Little finger curled into his palm.

"That guy's freakishly strong, y'know," the boy continues. "Can you believe he made us sleep in the forest?" His filter seems to have vanished, for some reason, and his words spill out like water.

"Even just thinking about walking makes my legs itchy—when you're out in the country, there's so much grass. And they come in different colours. Green, yellow, red, brown. There's probably purple grass too, somewhere. I bet it's spiky. I got grass in my underwear once and it poked my balls."

Shinsuke lets his head fall with a soft thud against the wall. 

"The farmers were pretty nice, though, and they traded with Shoyo. We ate a lot of rice. If Zura ate as much rice as I did, he would never make onigiri again."

Gintoki folds open to scratch the back of his ankle.

"Shoyo kept making us cross rivers. I don't even think there are that many rivers in Japan. Do you think he was making us cross the same ones over and over?"

Shinsuke snorts. "That was probably the only way he could get you to wash your stinky feet."

Like a weirdo, Gintoki barks with laughter. Picking his sword up from the futon, where it had laid next to his head, he stands and makes his way over to join Shinsuke outside. His footsteps are quiet and unobstrusive, though his presence, a warm weight settling against Shinsuke's side, makes the silence outside shrink back behind the fence. 

It reminds Shinsuke of the nights they spend outside together, sometimes, when the past is clinging to their backs. Those nights were alright, good even, and though Shinsuke will never admit it, it was nice to have Gintoki there.

It was good, the way things used to be. The way they were. The days when Shinsuke felt like a sapling in full light, watered by a steady stream. 

But now Shoyo-sensei's past has caught fire in the soft planks of the temple school, and they are outside once more, gazing past the pine trees, but now the pine trees have been stripped of their branches, and there is ash on their trunks. Shinsuke doesn't know if he will find solace in this again.

It was hard to sleep last night. Harder to wake up, because waking up meant that the blood on the grass and the burnt white flakes on his skin hadn't faded away in the night as dreamed things do, and so they were real. There are many things Shinsuke wishes weren't real: Shoyo's absence; the taste of fear and dread in the cold air; the tear stains on his classmates' faces; the bruises; the burns; the cuts and the scratches and the stinging scrapes.

Shinsuke thinks about how they found Gintoki, limp, lifeless on the ground with bruises wrapped bold-blue around his wrists, his face wet. It had been dark, but it hadn't been too dark to see how Gintoki's eyes shone damply under the moon, and it hadn't been too dark to see the gleam of blood against his neck, lit up by the bonfire of their home.

"We'll get Shoyo back," Shinsuke says, repeats really, because they'd already chanted that mantra a thousand, thousand times. Then he remembers. "But… our classmates—they aren't ready for the journey." It won't stop them from trying, Shinsuke thinks, but the hindrance is too significant to ignore. They can't afford to keep dead weight.

"Huh? That's fine," says Gintoki. "I'll teach you." He breathes out and it floats like a wispy cloud, clearer now that the mist has abated. "I'll be the best teacher you'll ever have. We'll eat dango every day instead of once a month." 

"You'll be the least trustworthy teacher we'll ever have," Shinsuke tells him. "No one's gonna trust someone who smells like blood and smoke." 

"That's my new cologne, Takasugi-kun. Ladies love cool and edgy things, you know. Oh, wait, sorry, I forgot you wouldn't know that, huh, since you don't get any action."

"You're just a kid, you moron. You don't get any action." Shinsuke retorts, playing into Gintoki's antics. He's used to his dumb mannerisms by now. It's a little annoying that Gintoki always does this stupid clown act whenever things get too serious for him, but for this morning, Shinsuke lets it slide. And sure, maybe he lets it slide every time, but that's nobody's business but his. 

"But I guess it's not like we can be called kids any longer. So feel free to do what you want."

Gintoki laughs again and comes ever closer, nudging him in the ribs. He's clutching his sword again and Shinsuke wants to hit something, and he doesn't know why, but the sight of Gintoki's white-knuckled grip, and the sight of his bloody fingers coiled tight around the hilt of that sword, that damn sword, Shoyo's sword, makes something pulse in his chest.

"Didn't you know, Takasugi-kun? You'll always be a kid at heart."

Shinsuke says nothing but Gintoki takes it in stride. He lowers his head, red eyes weary, creeping shut as the line of the horizon ignites, blazing pink. 

They sit there in silence until the others wake up, Shinsuke watching the sunrise drag itself through the sky and Gintoki asleep on his shoulder.  
  
  


°°°  
  


"So, what about you?" he hears Tatsuma say, muffled as though through a curtain, or through murky water. "What will you do?" 

It is evening, he thinks. Or it is morning, or it is noon, or the weighty hours of the night, when they might expect an ambush, or at least the throaty groan and final breaths of a wounded man. It's hard to tell, because his hair is plastered over his eyes, crusty with mud and something else. 

Shinsuke wrinkles his nose and scowls under the bandages wrapped over his forehead. They're neat, done by someone with steady hands, but stained with blood and sweat because whoever had done them had thought it would be fine to leave his face dirty. Fucking moron. That's not how hygiene works.

"I dunno," says Gintoki, his voice rough and grating. "Ya think I'm someone who wonders about the future?"

"True, true. That's sort of a dumb way to live, though, don't you think? Without foresight, I mean. Or hindsight. Actually, do you have either?" 

There's a loud slap, and a louder grunt. 

"Gh-! Alright! I'm sorry! Gee, why're you so violent today, huh, Shiroyasha-kun? What's got into your pants?"

"I'll show you violence," Gintoki mutters, promising. Tatsuma yelps even louder this time.

"It's okay, ahaha, I don't—I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!"

"—I'll show you sorry—"

Shinsuke finds himself wondering where Zura has gone. Where has Zura gone, leaving him with these idiots?

"There's an art to apologies," says Gintoki. "Either you go to hell and repent for the rest of your measly afterlife—"

"Why don't you go to hell?" Tatsuma interrupts. "Why me, huh? I didn't even do anything that bad. You're the one who punched me. Twice! Two times is more than one, you should take responsibility for my bruises!" 

"—or you," Gintoki continues blithely, "tell Bakasugi-kun that you're the one who drank his Yakult." 

The broken house they've commandeered is hardly better than being fully exposed to the elements, but water dripping through holes in the roof through to the rotting floorboard is at least slightly better than water pelting down their sleeping backs. Shinsuke's division came back two days ago with dozens of injured, and they are laid out on the damp wood, bloody and bandaged and rattling like they are half-dead. 

Zura's out. He must be doing something important. Making plans, probably. He's always making plans. It's been a while since he's patched any of them up—too busy for it, recently—and Shinsuke misses waking up from an injury to find his face and hands cleaned, his sword wiped of blood and entrails. Fucking Gintoki thinks that stitching up the gashes and wrapping them up with bandadges is the only thing that matters, that the mud will flake off by itself. And fair enough, it does, eventually, but in a war, they have none of the time, and the looming wraith of infection constantly at their heels. 

Fucking Gintoki is a moron. A moron. He has terrible ideas and a terrible bedside attitude, and his handwriting still looks splotchy, as if it's been left out in the rain.

Shinsuke does not think about his Yakult. His eye does not twitch.

".… the Yakult lady should be outside in a couple hours…" Tatsuma whispers. "I'll lend you 300 yen to buy a pack so no one dies." 

"That's unrealistic," Gintoki whispers back. "Food and drink prices are always inflated during a war, and she'll obviously charge me extra for delivering to a camp full of stinky young men."

"Tell her to pinch her nose before she takes the money from you," Tatsuma advises. "But wow, you're right. Were you actually listening when I was trying to explain inflation? And money? Ahaha, that's a rare occasion. Wait, is it, though? Are you always just pretending to be uninterested? Hey, hey, if you tell me something else that I've told you, I'll give you an extra 300 yen." 

It goes without saying, Shinsuke thinks, that Gintoki is only pretending. What's Tatsuma doing promising things to Gintoki, he wonders too. It'll end up badly in hindsight, he's sure.

"Huh," Gintoki says, ponderously. 

"Actually, speaking of listening—" There is a sense of something freezing, going tense. 

"No," says Gintoki.

"Will you think about it, though," Tatsuma says, stubbornly pressing on—about what, Shinsuke doesn't know, but maybe he does, and maybe he himself is stubborn for not wanting to admit it. The other man is quiet for once, Shinsuke realises that his voice has softened, when, he isn't sure, and it is rough and almost begging, almost pained. Shinsuke squeezes his eyes tighter as if it'll block out the sound of sorrow in Tatsuma's. "Please."

Gintok doesn't respond. He breathes, close-mouthed, and there is the sound of cloth shifting, like he is moving his limbs, pressing a stupid, sorry hand against Tatsuma's shoulder. Shinsuke isn't sure which is better—the lack of words, which from Gintoki are almost always deflections, or the silence, which has always spoken louder than his tongue.

"Kintoki," says Tatsuma, not crying, but not laughing either. 

"I'm staying," says Gintoki, and Shinsuke feels the weight of a gaze on his prone body, the bandages on his forehead, the healing gash on his chest. "I can't go."

"Ah, Kintoki," Tatsuma says again, pitifully. "You know what, I'm not giving you any money at all. Get your own." He laughs, a strained, bitter thing. 

Shinsuke wakes up fully, eyes open, at the end, once Tatsuma leaves. 

"Finally up, Sleeping Beauty?" Gintoki yawns, leaning heavily on the wall. His sword has fallen out of his hand.

"Fuck you," says Shinsuke. 

Gintoki lets his head fall back, showing his neck, and he is left staring at his slack face. A small part of him wants to tear his eyes out, punch him in his traitorous mouth. Maybe then he'd leave. There is a flask of sake beside him on the floor, to numb the pain, probably, and Shinsuke grabs the full container, downs it in one go, and strides outside.

°°°

He wakes up before the sun has fully risen, and the night is lingering like an old friend, like ink on parchment, on skin, distant stars shuttering as the dark expanse slowly lightens. The back of his throat feels raw and even swallowing seems to hurt, as if the flesh has turned to a bloody mess. He slides silently out of bed.

On the deck, the horizon is unreachable. Caught between the red sun and the sea, the line of it is fine and narrow, sharp as the edge of a blade. 

In the night, the ship had drifted closer to its destination, and skyscrapers are leaning out of the morning mist, their glass windows become a thousand eyes, wordless and mindless, to observe their arrival. They are nearing Edo.

Shinsuke stands at the pulpit, and Gintoki joins him, a second, a minute, an hour later—it could be any amount of time, and he would not be able to tell. 

Gintoki says something. He is serious and quiet, a rare occasion. His hand, calloused, tanned from the long months he spent walking the country, hesitant because of _something,_ reaches for Shinsuke and covers the white knuckles of his right hand, and the warm flesh of his palm gives against the protruding, skeletal structure of Shinsuke's . His kimono sleeve, shuddering, scrapes against the railing and rustles. 

It fizzes into white noise in his ear, sinking far beneath the ringing sound and pulse of blood in his veins—the clattering of his spine, the way the knobs of bone feel weathered, worn over by his rough insides; the ache in his feet, the pressure forcing its way upwards through his flesh. 

Time might be bleeding out before him, and the daylight has simmered beneath the water for as long as Shinsuke has been watching, unable to break the tension of the surface. He's tired. 

So tired. 

°°°

Gintoki's eyes are shuttered, his forehead just so slightly furrowed. His right hand is clutching the cloth of Shinsuke's shoulder, cradling his bloody neck in the crook of his elbow, his left hand is hovering over Shinsuke's chest, almost pressing down, stupid, sorry, he says, "We might've just been born under that kind of star." 

A wry smile sits on his lips. "That's not too bad, is it?" 

It isn't like him to speak like that, but maybe it is. It's been a long time since they have sat together. Shinsuke no longer knows how he laughs around a campfire, how he wraps his bandages, how he folds his fingers down and presses them stubbornly to the palm of his other hand, chasing the crackle of his joints. He is no longer familiar with the weight of Gintoki's silence on his back. But maybe that's a lie.

Gintoki's face, turned to the ground, cheeks wet, is engraved in the surface of his left eye, a memory inked deep into the membrane in messy characters, but it is not the only one. Shinsuke keeps count: 246 wins, and 247 losses; a pack of missing Yakult; dozens upon dozens of rivers, colourful grasses; a victory, Gintoki's forehead marked by a squiggly, unsteady circle; they've come full circle. He is not empty. The sun is coming at an angle through the broken buildings, casting shadow-lines on the ash, thin and bony, something limp, and yet still alive.

"You'd better not show me your disheartened face," Shinsuke tells him.

A long time ago, in a school beneath the pine trees, Shinsuke woke up to Gintoki's grinning face. It was open and warm, and taunting—his lips stretching out boxily around white teeth, and the skin of his cheeks scrunched together, creasing into easy lines. Gintoki is grinning, now. His eyes are wet, now. His cheeks are scraped and bloody. His arms are warm.

Shinsuke falls asleep, one last time, beneath the bright sky of Edo, and the buildings are skeletons that look like pine trees around him.

Shinsuke falls asleep slowly. Gintoki's hands are warm on his shoulders and the dark smears on his face look like ink stains, framing a wide, kind smile, framing his eyes. It's been a little over ten years and all they've done is come home. Maybe that's enough. He's done enough. 

The sunshine is warm on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> (i made a little bit of a mistake re-formatting this into a oneshot because all the comments are gone now, but i promise, if you left a comment, i have stored it away in my heart and i still treasure it, and i will continue to hoard them in my emails and in my inbox, i promise!!!!!) 
> 
> the takagin angst is finally done!! gintama the final is going to premiere in japan in two days, i'm so excited, oh my gosh!!!!


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